Buying Facilitation® will help you begin facilitating  the buyer’s decision path - defined as those back-end human issues (relationship, political, and financial) that must be managed prior to any agreement to  purchase – from first moment of the call.  By starting connections with a different focus, you can activate the purchasing decision process   immediately.

THE PROBLEM WITH STARTING WITH A ‘NEEDS’ FOCUS

Starting with the needs assessment, you are limiting your prospect audience by a factor of 4: in the studies I’ve done with my clients, they have brought in 4x the prospects – prospects that not only invited them in to visit, but had the entire Buying Decision Team waiting for them on first meeting/call.

When you begin your communication (either calls, or marketing automation) by attempting to find a buyer with a need that matches your solution, you are limiting your business.

• The only people who will agree to speak are those already searching for a solution similar to yours – and you will not know where they are in their search process;
• Prospects who might need your solution but hadn’t started the process of enlisting internal support for change will tell you they are fine, thanks.
• Prospects who might need your solution but are battling internal demons will tell you it’s a bad time and call back in, oh, 6 months.
• Prospects who don’t know you, or don’t want to speak with a stranger, will tell you they are fine. That may or may not mean they need your solution. And you’ll never know.

The problem is that the focus is on resolving a problem they aren’t ready to resolve. If they knew how to resolve their problem, they would have done so already.

Imagine if you focus on Excellence. Look at the difference between these openers:

How are you adding new sales skills to those you’re currently teaching your folks, for those times when you need them to be closing more business?
vs.
We’ve got some powerful sales training that will help you close more. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?

What’s the difference? Or this example:

How would you know if it were time to bring in additional banking solutions for those times when your current bank can’t give you the flexibility you might need?
vs.
I’m a small business banker, and I’ll be in your neighborhood next week. I’ve got some wonderful new products designed specifically for small businesses such as yours. Do you mind if I stop by either Tuesday or Wednesday?

What’s the difference?

In one question you’re helping the prospect decide if they want to add something new, and start them thinking about change. In the other, you’re attempting to place a solution before they have had the chance to think about whether or not they want to change.

BUYING IS A CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROBLEM

Until or unless buyers figure out how to manage all of the back-end change management issues, they cannot buy. They absolutely cannot buy. Remember: they’d done ‘well-enough’ until now, and if they really needed you, they would have purchased you (or your competition) already.

The system buyers live in is sacrosanct. I have a full chapter about this in my latest book: Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it. They will always choose to preserve the system rather than face the mess that buying a new solution will bring….unless they figure out how to minimize the mess and make sure the change issues are handled and there is appropriate buy-in to something new.

If you begin your conversations, as I did above, with Facilitative Questions and Buying Facilitation®, buyers can start figuring out their change issues right from the first call. Note: you thinking you know what they need does not help them get the internal buy-in necessary. Not to mention without the entire Buying Decision Team on board, they won’t know what they need, either.

By the end of the first call, you can actually teach prospect how to bring together the full Buying Decision Team, and all be on your second with you, to lead them through their change and choice issues re seeking excellence - hopefully with your solution.

I go back to the question I’ve been posing since 1988: Would you rather sell? or have someone buy? They are two different activities. Start by helping them decide how to buy, and you’ll sell a helluva lot more.

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Learn Buying Faciltiation® with Sharon Drew in a classroom setting, or through individual learning.  Listen to Sharon Drew have live prospecting conversations with learning discussions.

Learn Buying Facilitation® | Implement Buying Facilitation® | License Buying Facilitation®

Where does selling begin? Activate the buying journey immediately is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Would you bring in a leadership training without getting the buy-in from the people who would be trained? Or know their criteria without their voices?

Would you choose a web designer without getting the buy-in from the current design team and the techies? Would you know what they would want included until they offered their opinions or knew what parts they wanted to do themselves?

Why not?

I recently had a coaching call with a SVP at a well-known CRM Management company. The man had a Harvard MBA, had been a partner at Accenture, and now was running the Texas sales operation for this CRM company. This is not a stupid man, obviously, but a man steeped in the ‘sales’ thinking modality.

During his session he wanted to put together a set of Facilitative Questions that would help his prospect (a hardware company with a sales force of 1500) buy his solution during his ‘big meeting’ that he finally got. Who was going to be in the meeting? I asked.

SS: There will be 10 people there: the head of sales and her team, and the head of marketing and her team.

SDM: So you’ve got 2 people.

SS: No! Ten! And it took me 2 months and 3 meetings with the head of sales to have her set up this meeting.

SDM: But there are only 2 members of the Buying Decision Team who will be present. Who else would need to be on the Buying Decision Team?

SS: Well, the head of technology, obviously, but he’s on board. He loves our solution. Besides, he’s only an influencer.

SDM:  So if he doesn’t want a CRM system, the company will ignore him?

SS: No. They wouldn’t buy. I guess that makes him a decision maker.

SDM:  And  there won’t be a problem with him working together with the heads of sales and marketing? They have no relationship issues?

SS: Oh. I guess I wouldn’t want to be there while they decided on stuff together. Hm. Who else do they have to get on their Buying Decision Team?

SDM: Not only do you not know, but they don’t know yet either. Let’s start with users. There must be user groups with 15oo sales people.

SS: There are 6 user groups. I guess we’d need their buy in.

SDM: I’m curious about the tech group. Your solution has a complicated implementation process and takes quite a bit of collaboration with the in-house folks. Does the tech team know they will need to free up folks for the implementation? Or are they going to outsource all of this? Or some combination?

SS: I have no way of knowing that.

SDM: That’s correct. And neither do they. And until they figure that out, they cannot buy your solution. In fact, until they have the entire Buying Decision Team on board, they can’t buy. There are too many people who need to have a voice, too many unknown decisions to make, too many buying and implementation criteria to take into account. And you can’t understand any of this – or be directly involved in doing it for the prospect. But you can lead them through their decisions so they have a path to follow. Otherwise you can wait until they figure it out themselves.

SS: So this meeting tomorrow is too early, with too few of the Buying Decision Team members, and giving them a big presentation right now is wasting my time and theirs because we don’t have all of the right people and they don’t have all of their buying criteria. This is why my sales take years to close. What do I do tomorrow? I bet you’re going to tell me not to make a presentation.

SDM: Let’s put together a list of Facilitative Questions that will help them figure out how to manage all of the issues we just discussed. And, at the end, if they still want a bit of your presentation, it’s fine. So long as you understand that their needs might change once all of the Buying Decision Team members have a say in the outcome. Obviously the tech folks will have different purchasing criteria than the sales folks, and the users won’t want anything new. And now, no one knows any of this.

Until or unless all of the members of the Buying Decision Team are on board, the buyer can not know their full set of buying criteria – or even the full definition of their need. When sellers go in and first attempt to ‘understand need’ or even ‘know who is on the Buying Decision Team [useless data as an outsider is not an influencer on the Team]‘ or offer solution data, they are wasting a lot of time and delaying the buying decision.

Facilitate buy-in, manage change, and help gather the correct Buying Decision Team members first. Then help them all figure out their buying, buy-in, and change criteria. And THEN you can focus on the need and your solution. And close a lot more sales a whole lot faster.

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Read sample chapters of Buying Facilitation®: the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions. This book is a very clear discussion of what Buying Facilitation® is and does. It’s tactical; my book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it is strategic. You can get them both in a bundle with an additional illustrated booklet in a bundle at www.buyingfacilitation.com

Help Buyers Choose the Buying Decision Team: a case study is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Buyers live in a ‘system’ that maintains their Identified Problem (or ‘pain’)  over time, creating work-arounds that become part of the system and, well, comfortable. Indeed, if the buyer really needed to make a change, they would have done so already. It’s only when a group of dedicated, internal  change agents are willing to push the river, that a purchase is even considered.

Before buyers can buy, there must be buy-in to the proposed change, a plan that minimizes disruption, and a way to foster agreement between the people, policies and relationships that touch a new solution. A buying decision is far more complex than just fixing a problem.

I’ve developed Buying Facilitation® – a decision navigation model that is an add-on to sales and helps buyers bring together the right people and issues - to enable agreement and ensure change procedures are  in place to make a purchase. Here are a few Buying Facilitation® skills to use with sales:

9 STEPS

Help the gatekeeper discover who your best point of contact would be.

Don’t try to ‘get through’ the gatekeeper. She knows the best person to connect you with. And don’t attempt to ‘go to the top.’  The top person usually delegates to the appropriate people. Ask for the CEO’s assistant, and she’ll get you to the right people. Question: who is in control of the conversation – you? or the Gatekeeper?

Use Facilitative Questions to get into rapport and have buyers begin to examine how/if/why they would consider changing their status quo.

Until or unless prospects determine to make a change and get all appropriate folks on board to buy-in to change and ensure there is minimal disruption, it doesn’t matter whether

• you can see their need,
• your solution is perfect,
• they think they need you/your solution,
• they love your solution, price, personality, etc.

IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU. Do you need to be working out more? It’s not about the gym.

Here is a Facilitative Question I use to start conversations: How would you know if it were time to add new sales skills to the ones you’re already offering your sales folks? This question helps them think about necessary steps and new choices they must consider.

Remember: discussing solutions and needs assessment are irrelevant at this early stage. Facilitative Questions help the BUYER see the whole picture of what is going on strategically and tactically. Until or unless they know how to manage their system first, they will take no action. This is where buyers go when you’re sitting and waiting.

Lead prospects/buyers through the systems issues they must consider in order to determine how any proposed change will disrupt their status quo.

Facilitative Questions and Presumptive Summaries are used to help buyers look at their status quo with an unbiased eye. No matter what their ‘need’ or ‘problem’  if they don’t think they can change in a way that maintains systems congruence, they will do nothing. Remember: the buyer’s environment/culture/system has lived with the Identified Problem until now, and can continue to do so. If they had known how to resolve it differently, they would have.

Facilitate prospect’s discovery of what sorts of strategic issues they must manage to get folks on board with potential change.

There are 3 levels of decisions necessary: systems, strategic, and tactical. Addressing them in this order is optimal  although it’s usually an iterative process.

Lead prospects/buyers through tactical issues they must manage before they can choose a solution.

Once they determine that

1. their system would be willing to shift to add something/change/resolve something,
2. their rules, relationships, people, are willing to change,
3. they know how to shift congruently to minimize disruption,

they will then be willing to bring in a new solution. Until or unless their status quo is reconfigured in a way that the insiders are willing to support, they will do nothing: the risk to their functioning is too high. Hence the longer-than-necessary sales cycle.

Buyers must do this with you or without you – so it might as well be with you.

Help the prospect choose the members of the Buying Decision Team.

Help buyers recognize the right people to include. Usually they don’t know who it will be until way down the road, much like you don’t know all the trials you’ll face before you start a move.

Discuss how your solution fits with the internal issues that they must manage.

This step is about melding your solution with the entire range of issues they have to manage internally, including the people, policies, and relationships.

Discuss/present your solution and show the prospect/buyer how it would fit with their need/problem.

Once they do all of the above and get appropriate buy-in to manage change, they will know how and when to buy, and you can discuss needs/solutions according to their buy-in issues.

Follow up to see if there is anything you can do to help the prospect/buyer decide to purchase.

This is part of a good sales job, of course.

SALES TACTICS THAT ARE NO LONGER NECESSARY

Make an appointment to get in front of the prospect

This is a hold-over from another era. Until buyers put together their decision team and figure out how to change without disruption, your bright shiny face and the efficacy of your solution is irrelevant. You can do all of the above without meeting a client. And then, when you get there, the entire Buying Decision Team will be there and you wouldn’t have wasted any time/visits.

Manage objections and differentiate yourself from the competition.

The sales model creates objections because it pushes data/solution info against a ‘closed system.’ When you hear an objection, it’s merely the system defending itself against change and nothing whatsoever about your solution. Once you teach the system how to manage buy-in without disruption, there are no objections.

80% of your prospects will buy within 2 years – but not from you. The time it takes them to manage the buying decision to ensure there will be no disruption is the length of the sales cycle. You can either sit and wait for them to do it, or you can learn Buying Facilitation® and become the GPS system to help them navigate. Would you rather sell? or help someone buy?

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Wanting to learn more? Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what to do about it. Check out the site for more details.

Or consider purchasing the bundle: Dirty Little Secrets plus my last book Buying Facilitation®: the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions. In addition, you will also receive a bonus illustrated booklet.

9 Sales Steps that Influence a Buying Decision is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

This guy was talking to me as if I had never been on a computer before: “Do you know where the backspace button is?” “Now hit Send.” I kept thinking that if I said, “Got it” ”Did it” enough times he’d understand that maybe I knew how to follow higher level orders.

Finally my patience wore thin: “I’m pretty computer savvy. Do you think  you could speak with me as if I knew how to follow higher level directions?” His response:  “But I talk to everyone this way.” And I, given my high annoyance factor by then, said, “How can you really serve your clients if you don’t know how to speak in the language patterns they listen in?”

SELLING PATTERNS VS. BUYING PATTERNS

So here’s my question: What’s the difference between your selling patterns and your buyer’s buying patterns? Because if you don’t know the difference, and merely use your selling patterns, you will only sell to those people whose buying patterns match your selling patterns, and will turn off the rest. Regardless of your solution. Regardless of their need.

Think about the old telemarketing industry. They folded. The entire industry. Why? Their products were fine. The problem was their selling patterns were annoying. So annoying they were put out of business.

I had a monthly column in TeleProfessional magazine in the 90s. Every month for 2 years I told them that if they didn’t adopt a new skill set they’d be out of business. Every once in a while the editor would write a column telling people to read my column and wake up. Between the two of us we tried to save the industry. But they liked doing it their way, all the way to failure.

Right now, sellers are losing a lot of business because of many reasons:

1. the vast array of choices on the  internet;
2. meeting clients too late in the sales cycle to have influence;
3. buyers find different/creative solutions they hadn’t originally thought of;
4. the economy is forcing them to use internal resources as much as possible.

Flexibility is urgent now.

WOULD YOU RATHER SELL? OR HAVE SOMEONE BUY

By using your conventional, habitual selling patterns – say, calling for an appointment, or calling and asking about needs immediately and THEN asking for an appointment – you will only sell to those prospects who buy the same way you sell. It’s uncomfortable otherwise, and given the range of possible choices they have, they would prefer not to deal with someone that makes them uncomfortable.

When you use Buying Facilitation®, there are no selling patterns. You are merely using Facilitative Questions to lead buyers through the behind-the-scenes decision issues they would need to address if they were to seek excellence. “How are you currently adding new sales skills to the ones you’re already teaching your sales folks?” “”How would your Buying Decision Team know if it were time to consider training a broader range of skills that would incorporate into what you’re already doing successfully?”

These sample Facilitative Questions (used in a specific sequence that matches decision making) show you how it’s possible to interact with a prospect to get them to begin their change journey. Because if they don’t know the answers, they can’t buy anyway.

Here are some Facilitative Questions for you:

What would need to happen to start using your buyer’s buying patterns from the first call? From the first moment of the first call?

What would that look like? What skills would you need? What would you need to understand before you begin learning Buying Facilitation® to recognize the possibility that you might get more business doing it that way?

What would you need to know or belive differently to be willing to begin your calls collaborating around excellence, rather than trying to sell a solution?

Stop trying to start your conversations with a solution/sale focus. You’re wasting a high percentage of your time with folks who will never buy (over 90%); you might as well start with helping them discover how to want to be excellent. And then you can sell. I’m not suggesting you not sell. I am suggesting that you first teach buyers how to buy.

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Listen to Sharon Drew do live prospeting/qualifying calls: MP3

Read 2 sample chapters of books on Buying Facilitation® and change.

Sharon Drew is a contributor to the new Entrepreneurial Selling program by RAIN Group. Check out the free video series leading up to the program.

Learn Buying Facilitation® | Implement Buying Facilitation® | License Buying Facilitation®

“But I talk to everyone this way”: the difference between selling patterns and buying patterns is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Does this make sense – to keep doing what is not working, regardless of the ‘rational’ choices that would resolve a problem?

Actually, it does. Because making a purchase, or doing something different, means

• some sort of change management to ensure that the new and the old work together
• helping folks who touch the current practices be willing and able to change.

Make no mistake: bringing anything new into an existent system - whether it’s a purchase or an implementation – is a change management problem.

A BUYING DECISION IS A CHANGE MANAGEMENT PROBLEM

Sales, marketing automation, and the new telemarketing field, ignore the change management aspect of what buyers must accomplish and instead focus on figuring out how and what and to whom to push. And push we do.

Let me back track a bit. Givens:

1. sales manages the needs assessment and solution placement portion of the buyer’s decision.
2. neither sales nor marketing go behind-the-scenes, into the environment/culture in which the buyer lives, to help facilitate the non-solution-focused internal political or relational issues buyers must address to get the necessary buy-in to make a purchase.
3. buyers don’t know their route through the systemic decision path when they begin to think about resolving a problem.
4. the time it takes buyers to get the appropriate buy-in from all who will touch the solution is the length of the sales/change cycle.

These are the issues we come smack up against as sales folks: when buyers try to push a solution into a group that haven’t progressed through their entire change management path, they offer objections and time delays as they figure out how to figure it out.

Buying Facilitation® is not sales, but it works with sales. It is a wholly different skill set that actually shows buyers how to manage the systemic change they will face when purchasing a solution or bringing something new in to their status quo. It not only teaches buyers how to get the requisite buy-in so their daily functioning won’t be compromised - managing the people, policies, technology, and old vendor, etc. issues – but shows them how to pro-actively manage the change that will happen once the new solution is on board.

A SOLUTION CAN’T COMPROMISE THE STATUS QUO

If the tech guy doesn’t want to outsource work; if the sales and marketing folks are not talking to each other; if the “C” level person has a favored vendor from 3 years ago; if there is already something in place that cost a bundle and the buyer merely wants to tack on yet another fix – if anything political or relational is going on internally that would compromise the system, the buyer will not buy: they will not buy if the system itself would be at risk.

Just as you are resisting adding Buying Facilitation® to your sales model, even though it would resolve so many of your sales issues (stops all objections, severely shortens the sales cycle, gets the Buying Decision Team collected in days), your buyers are resisting purchasing even though they need your solution.

Let’s figure out how to help your buyers buy. Let’s teach them how to manage their change so you can easily place your solution. What would you need to see from me, or know about Buying Facilitation® to know if it would be worth the change?

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Listen to Sharon Drew’s webinar with Frameworks: Buy-In: a radical approach to change management.

Hear Sharon Drew teach material from her Buying Facilitation® training and hear her make cold calls to qualify, prospect, and raise funds.

Read Buying Facilitation®: the new way to sell that expands and influences decisions.

Learn Buying Facilitation® | Implement Buying Facilitation® | License Buying Facilitation®

Change management and sales: influencing the buying decision path is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

I originally labelled the trip through the behind-the-scenes issues buyers must contend with (those political, relational, strategic issues that will be touched when a new solution enters) ‘navigating the buyer’s decision.’

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN SELLING AND MANAGING OFF-LINE BUYING DECISION ISSUES

Historically, sellers have mistakenly assumed I focus on decisions related to the purchase and the need. In fact, folks have had a real hard time understanding my intent: some sellers, regardless of illustrations, or webinars, books or speeches, assume I mean what every sales person must do: help buyers

1. figure out how to purchase the right solution for their need,
2. get the funding to pay for it,
3. understand all of the choices that would be a plausible solution,
4. choose the right vendor.

Smart, savvy business folks and entrepreneurs still believe that’s my message or have just defined the term to fit their comfortable level. Regardless of what others say, it’s important for me that it’s understood that my work is not meant for the solution-placement end of the buying journey, but for the non-needs-related set of activities buyers must handle amongst themselves to

1. find the right set of people for the Buying Decision team as they begin consideration to make a change,
2. make sure that every department, job function, existing solution, and political relationship that will touch a new solution gets managed appropriately to ensure minimal disruption to the status quo,
3. get the appropriate buy-in so folks work together to design a way for the new solution to fit.

It’s the stuff buyers must do before they buy. They do this without us. And we sit and wait, because sales doesn’t handle this portion of the buyer’s journey.

BUYING FACILITATION® AND SALES TOGETHER

Just to clarify: sales manages the needs assessment and solution placement end of the buyer’s journey – the last 10% of their activity. Because

• if the tech guy doesn’t want the new solution and won’t free up people without a fight,
• if the user group doesn’t want to take training,
• if the company is going through an M&A,
• if the regular vendor can handle a portion of the need,
• if the tech person and the marketing person are having a turf war,
• if anything that affects the status quo cannot make the necessary internal changes to handle a new solution,

the buyer will take no action, regardless of their need.

And that’s why 7% of your prospects buy now, and 80% of your prospects will buy within 2 years, and from someone else: the time it takes them to do this is the length of the sales cycle.

With my Asperger’s systems-thinking brain, I’ve actually coded the change management issues buyers must handle before buying: Buying Facilitation® is based on how systems work (and sales treats a ‘need’ as if it were an isolated event – it’s not), and how to maintain homeostasis as the system faces change. It teaches sellers how to put on the hat of a change agent and help buyers navigate through all of their idiosyncratic and people/policy issues. It  includes using Facilitative Questions, Systems Listening, and Decision Sequencing, all designed to lead buyers through their internal issues to make the right decisions that will leave their system intact and better than when it started.

It’s not sales. But it collapses the decision cycle and helps folks come up with their unique criteria for buy-in so they’ll take action. It’s great for coaching, negotiating, leadership, and personnel issues.  All marketing automation technology should add Buying Facilitation® to their contact sheets, and to their telemarketing scripts and lead scoring.

FACILITATING THE BUYER’S JOURNEY

Finally, around 8 years ago, I coined the term Facilitating the Buyer’s Journey, thinking that I finally ‘got it’.

Except the term is so terrific that it’s been co-0pted by the sales field which  is REdefining it to  fit into ‘sales’ and solution choice.

Now I’ve got a quandry: if the term ‘facilitating the buyer’s journey’ gets co-opted into the conventional sales thinking, we all run the risk of losing the intent, the model, the brand, the powerful methodology that actuallys help the buyer manage change. If I start writing a lot about MY definition, I run the risk of being a johnny-one-note.

Of course, this is journey of all new ideas: the originator finally learns how to say it, and then it gets stolen and co-opted by the mainstream. And the originator dies with one ear, in poverty. And the original idea get subsumed. We don’t see many geodesic domes; thankfully impressionism was picked up by others besides Van Goch.

My biggest fear is that we’ll lose the original intent and fail to learn a new skill set.

So I’ll leave the choice up to you: would you rather sell? Or have someone buy. Because if you’d rather sell, you can shove ‘facilitating the buyer’s journey’ into sales, and probably not notice there is a far, far more successful way to help buyers buy. If you’d rather have someone buy….. have I got a term for you! :)

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Come to my loft in Austin and learn Buying Facilitation® with me or send a trainer to learn to train your folks. Buying Facilitation® licensing program that includes Facilitating Buying Decisions: July 2-8, Austin TX.

Webinar with Method Frameworks June 15th:
Buy-in: A Radical Approach To Change Management

Learn Buying Facilitation® | Implement Buying Facilitation® | License Buying Facilitation®

Facilitating the Buyer’s Journey: a definition is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Before a buyer buys, or a decision gets made, all of the elements that will be changed by the new solution must buy-in. This includes getting the right players on board, managing old vendors, insuring new solutions meld with current ones, managing internal politics, matching strategic needs with initiatives over time, etc. It’s very difficult for sales folks to understand that there is a gap between the need and solution, and the buying decision that must include all of the pieces that touch the solution and might experience change with a new solution.

The time it takes this buy-in to happen is the length of the sales cycle, regardless of the need or the efficacy of the solution. And when something new is forced into the system without systemic buy-in, as sellers do when attempting to place a solution before the buyer has gone down their full buying decision path, the system will resist. Hence, we get long delays and objections when it appears clear that the buyer has a need we can fulfill. And we think there is a buyer when there is none because they cannot get the necessary buy-in to purchase.

SELLING VS BUYING

The sales model is a solution-placement model that ignores the behind-the-scenes, non-need-related issues that must be managed internally before a purchase can occur. We end up sitting and waiting, and pushing, and waiting, and pushing, and hoping until all of these activities take place, and then close the low hanging fruit. And we have no idea where the other prospects go.

Buying Facilitation® has a different outcome and unique skill set: Its job is to lead buyers through their entire decision path to recognize and manage all of the elements that must be handled.  It’s a change management/buy-in model (that uses NO sales techniques or strategies) that actually teaches buyers how to be ready to buy, and folds in the purchase/solution as a part of the decision journey.

Used in front of sales it:

1. closes sales in 1/8 the time;
2. recognizes who is a buyer and who isn’t, on the first call;
3. helps buyers collect the appropriate Buying Decision Team on the first call and has them available for a meeting or conference call soon after the first call (even if it’s a cold call);
4. helps buyers recognize and influence all of the people, policy, vendor, budget, time, relationship, and political issues they must include in so that a purchase can enter the system without disrupting the status quo significantly;
5. gets everyone who will touch the solution on board within 2 calls, and work with their buy-in issues to move the sale forward, or end the sales relationship immediately.

In other words, by the time the ‘sales’ process begins, the full Buying Decision Team is in place, have offered their needs and concerns, know exactly their next steps (and yours), are eager to fit your solution into their status quo, have no objections (money or otherwise) and are ready and able to buy-in to a purchase. All in a collapsed schedule.

With a $50,000,000 solution, working with Buying Facilitation® KPMG turned a 3 year sales cycle into a 4 month sales cycle. IBM was selling a simple software solution: we turned a 6 month sales cycle into a 3 call close. Kaiser went from 110 visits and 18 closed sales to 27 visits and 25 closed sales. In each instance, we were able to not only collapse the sales cycle, but teach the buyer how to make the requisite changes congruently, in accordance with their internal rules. In other situations we got rid of inappropriate prospects on the first call, or enabled folks we didn’t think were prospects to recognize their need for a new solution.

HOW SALES DOESN’T WORK

Using sales or marketing automation, you are finding people with a possible need, but merely putting great data in their reach – and assuming that the data will  influence a buying decision. But:

1. your data doesn’t necessarily reach the right people;
2. your data might not address the full range of solution issues (and that you can not know about as an outsider);
3. your solution might run counter to how their current vendor is managing things;
4. your solution might not fit comfortably with their current solution and they haven’t yet decided to get rid of it;
5. the Buying Decision Team hasn’t been formed yet and until it is they can’t buy (Hint: buyers aren’t aware of who needs to be on this team until well into the purchasing discussion);
6. we are pushing our solution against a ‘system’ that has maintained homeostasis for some time and would be disrupted if something new entered (The system is sacrosanct: until buyers figure out how to make sure the system is not adversely affected if they were to buy something, they will take no action.);
7. the appropriate buyer but can’t get the requisite buy-in to make a purchase (hence the 80% of your prospects who will buy within 2 years, but not from you.).

Buying Facilitation® – which employs a very unique skill set – has been used to run meetings, help “C” level people set strategy, negotiate, manage, supervise, and coach. It can be used to design scripts for telemarketers, or upfront as part of a software tool for change management. It is a decision facilitation model based on systems thinking, servant leadership, change management, and the ability to serve others. I call it a GPS system to lead folks through their decision making criteria. I’ve also developed a new form of contact sheet for marketing automation, to truly follow the buying decision path and offer the right data at the right time.

Learn Buying Facilitation® through an in-house training or a self-guided study. You can start with my 2 latest books: Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it; and/or Buying Facilitation®: the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions. But stop selling. Add Buying Facilitation® to your great sales skills.

Would you rather sell? Or have someone buy?

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Webinar with Method Frameworks June 15th:
Buy-in: A Radical Approach To Change Management

3-Day Public Training in Austin  June 14-16 Syllabus | Registration

Learn Buying Facilitation® | Implement Buying Facilitation® | License Buying Facilitation®

The results of using Buying Facilitation® is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

SELLERS ENTER TOO EARLY

We fail to realize that we are only being brought in when they have all of their internal ducks in a row and are ready to bring in a change.  When buyers are

• considering all options and face confusion and internal politics,
• recognizing a problem and the timing on fixing it,
• doing research into possible vendors or solutions,
• figuring out which problems to resolve in which order,
• understanding how a new solution will create shifts in their culture and technology,
• figuring out who needs to be on the Buying Decision Team, the prospect isn’t ready to buy.

As sellers, we don’t realize that buyers have an incomplete understanding who to invite on the Buying  Decision Team when they begin their process (I write about this in my latest book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it). The entire buying path is largely unknown up until close to the end of their decision – and until it is, they cannot make a purchase.

In fact, there are so many human issues that rear their ugly heads that a buyer really has no idea at the start who to involve, what the buy-in problems will be, nor what personal, corporate, or market issues will have to be resolved prior to making a purchase. And until they figure this out, they cannot buy, regardless of the efficacy of our solution.

SALES IGNORES THE BACK-END, NON-SOLUTION-RELATED  DECISION PATH

Sales gives us no skills to help with those back end decisions as they are not needs/solution-related. And we sit and wait while buyers figure it out. But Buying Facilitation® does: it’s a change management/decision facilitation model that gives you an additional skill set to lead buyers through their private issues that we’ve always sat and waited for them to complete.

No, it’s not sales, and it’s not solution-placement or needs-assessment — sales does a wonderful job of doing that. But add Buying Facilitation® to your sales skills, and enter the buyer’s decision path early and become a very active partner. You will:

• close 8x more sales;
• halve the close time;
• understand who is not a prospect on the first call;
• only go to meetings when the entire Buying Decision Team is involved (and you’ll help get all of the members included);
• rarely need a proposal, or be in a competitive situation.

Would you rather sell? or have someone buy? They are two different activities. Sales will only help you place your solution. Buying Facilitation® can lead the buyer through their decisions. Call to discuss how to become a part of the buyer’s buying journey.

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• Guided Study program for individuals or teams
• Learning Accelerators
• Buy the MP3′s of Sharon Drew making live phone prospecting and qualifying calls.

3-Day Public Training in Austin  June 14-16 Syllabus | Registration

Make the vendor an active partner from early in the buyer’s decision path is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Does your buyer know the answers to these questions? Because until they do, they won’t buy. And, even if you think you know the answers – which would be impossible as they are personal and idiosyncratic to each buying environment – that doesn’t help the prospect manage their status quo, which is a hands-on, trial-and-error exercise.

I bet you thought that because they have a problem/pain/need and you have a solution, that your prospects are ready to buy. Or because you did a great presentation and they seemed to like you. But you would have closed a lot more sales if it were that simple.

WHAT DOES A BUYER NEED BEFORE THEY CAN BUY?

What, exactly, does a buyer need to do to get ready to make a purchase?

Here are a few things that are essential for buyers to handle to be ready to buy. But do not, not for a moment, think that the sales model you are using will help the buyer get ready. Because the internal, off-line, idiosyncratic stuff they must manage is not needs-related, and cannot be resolved by a purchase. It’s a systems problem that can only be managed by the system.

Here are the issues buyers must manage before they are ready to buy:

1. get all of the Buying Decision Team on board. That means, everyone who will touch the solution. This is not as simple as it seems. And buyers don’t know at the start who needs to be involved. But unless everyone lends their voices, no purchase will happen.

2. in regards to how the system (the people, functions, relationships, job descriptions, etc.)will function once something new enters, understand the difference between what needs to change, what cannot change, and what will change – and how to mitigate these.

3.  discover who needs to buy-in, when, to what extent, and what role do they play as the Buying Decision Team is formed, and then when a new solution would come aboard.

4. manage the change – and recognize and manage each potential problem before the solution is purchased. Otherwise there will be unknowable disruption. And the system the buyers live in is sacrosanct – or they would have known how to fix their problem earlier.

5. get appropriate buy-in, including people, policies, politics, old vendors, and make sure the new solution melds with their current solutions.

6. check out all possibilities for a fix – with a bias toward finding familiar vendors  used in the past.

7. organize the new roles, responsibilities, initiatives, and internal politics, and begin managing the potential fallout.

8. understand when all internal stuff is complete and know when to move forward – taking into account all of the criteria of all of the players (current and future).

On www.en.mimi.hu there is a definition that I find lacking: “Buyer readiness stages: categorize consumers  in terms of how close they are to making a purchase or a decision. Stages range from initial awareness, through to interest, desire and, finally, action.”

I believe that that definition ignores the entire back end of the buyer’s change management journey and is quite limited.

Let’s start a discussion on Buyer Readiness. I’ll start a new site. Let’s develop some models and training materials. I believe this is important for Qualifying and shortening the sales cycle.

The big question is: what do you need to be doing differently to help buyers enter into Buyer Readiness early in the buying journey? Given it’s not currently part of the sales model, how will you approach this? May I, ahem, suggest you read one of my books, or listen to some of my podcasts. And when you get convinced that you need skills in addition to your sales skills, you can contact me.

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Books:

• Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.
• Buying Facilitation™: the new way to sell that expands and influences decisions.
• MP3
• Learning accelerators

Recent Posts

• Buying Facilitation™ is a Method not just a term
• Why do we get pushback – and can it be avoided?
• Provocation-based selling:proving pain does not close a sale

Learn Buying Facilitation™ | Implement Buying Facilitation™ | License Buying Facilitation™

Buyer Readiness: teach the buyer to qualify themselves is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Before new decisions get made, the status quo – the underlying system of rules, beliefs, relationships, etc. - must (by the very nature of homeostasis) buy-in to the proposed change or it will resist and push back. And the time it takes for buy-in to occur is the length of the change cycle. Or, in sales, the length of the sales cycle.

I was running my start-up at the time and noticed that staff didn’t have the flexibility they needed and prospects took far too long to make buying decisions. Before this I had been in sales for many years and had just assumed that buyers were making dumb decisions. But in my company I realized the problem: within people systems (as in all systems), the status quo prevailed regardless of the efficacy of the need to change. Any proposed change either didn’t happen, or it took too long. The system certainly pushed back when it felt attacked – rightly or wrongly.

HOW BUYING FACILITATION® GOT DEVELOPED

I then spent quite a bit of time developing a decision navigation method (much like a neutral GPS system) that would help people navigate through their unconscious and conscious criteria to get the internal buy-in necessary to comfortably change and consider adopting a new solution. I added this skill set to all communications with my team, clients, partners, and prospects.

With prospects, it helped them get their ducks in a row and helped them manage  relationship issues, internal politics, old vendor issues – whatever would have to happen to tolerate change (which is what a new solution is). I realized that as a sales person my prospects were doing this anyway – without me, and very inefficiently – as I waited for them to buy.

This method is based on brain function: how brains store information, and how criteria for choice can be discovered and re-weighted. I uncovered the systems behind the sequences of decisions, and developed a new form of question (Facilitative Question) as the main skill, along with Systems Listening.

By using this method, I made it possible for sellers (or managers, or lawyers) to act as a GPS device – and a servant leader – and help people navigate through all of those mysterious behind-the-scenes places they’d need to get buy-in from (many not related to a problem, need, or solution choice) before they’d change, or buy.

I had to name this methodology, and decided not to use a ‘sales’ term since the method was not a needs assessment or solution placement skill, but used as an adjunct to sales. I decided to call this  Buying Facilitation® as a way to

1. differentiate it from sales and sales vocabulary
2. keep it close enough to sales so that sellers would recognize an agreeable complement
3. use the term ‘buying’ as it was close to the ’buy-in’ necessary as part of change management.

I used this model to help buyers recognize and handle their buying decision issues, but also to manage staff, take care of problems with my husband, and run meetings. I realized at the time that it was an ubiquitous methodology useful for all people to make their own best decisions (I eventually coined the term a ‘decision facilitation’ model as a way to describe it), from criteria-out rather than from information-in. In my own business, it helped buyers buy somewhere around 800% more efficiently- I doubled my business every year.

Through the ensuing years, I refined the method. It now includes many unique skills that can be taught to enable parents and children, doctors and patients, sellers and buyers, colleagues at meetings, to work together and make choices based on agreed-upon criteria that is often unspoken, but necessary to include as a decision gets made.  It operates as a Change Management function with unique skill set that I have trained in dozens of organizations (about 20,000 people) as part of sales training.

BUYING FACILITATION® HAS VERY UNIQUE SKILL SETS

Here are some of the unique skills that comprise the Buying Facilitation® method  model:

• Listening for Systems;
• Decision Sequencing;
• Formulating Facilitative Questions [note: Sharon Drew coined the term Facilitative Questions but did not trademark that term. It involves a very unique capability to use different parts of the brain to gather and manage unconscious criteria so new choices match beliefs and get buy-in for change. This term has now been co-opted into the world, and has been redefined to be just another term for 'questioning.' Outside of my programs, the intended meaning/usage has been lost]
• Formulating Presumptive Summaries

These skills are quite complex, as they are skills not consciously used in conventional thinking or decision making, but mirror what is actually happening when decisions get made.

For most of the last 20 years, the word ‘facilitation’ was generally not used within the sales universe. In fact, when I used it as part of my company name (Morgen Facilitations, Inc), my training programs (learning facilitation), and my change management consulting (change facilitation), I was made fun of for using a term no one understood. “Too long a word” I was told.

Recently, the field of sales has developed a new focus on buying decisions, buying support, and the buyer’s journey – all things ‘buying decision’ oriented. Unfortunately, the term Buying Facilitation® appears to be similar to other terms now being used to define a solution-focused buyer’s journey.

For those hoping to use the term Buying Facilitation® to represent that part of the vendor and solution choice process buyers go through as part of their purchasing decision, I offer the following choices:

1. buying decision
2. buyer facilitation
3. buying decision journey
4. buyer’s decision process
5. buyer’s journey
6. buying process management

Or if you want to use Buying Facilitation®,  use the term properly defined, as I have defined it in 7 books, over 1000 articles,  450 blog posts and 100 newsletters over the past 20 years, on my websites and very very thoroughly in my latest book Dirty Little Secrets.

Like Facilitative Questions, if this term is not protected to define the method, it will get subsumed and become just another set of  words used in sales, rather than a change management methodology: a very unique, complex set of skills that sellers can use to help buyers navigate through their off-line, non-purchase decisions.

To set the record straight, here is  the legal definition:

Buying Facilitation® designates very specific set of  systems-based skills that help buyers (and anyone) navigate through the full range of their behind-the-scenes change management and decision issues – usually not need- or solution-related but based on internal relationships, politics, rules, etc. necessary for change: pre-purchase, pre-needs assessment, pre-solution choice…pre sales.

To get a complete understanding of the method, get my latest book Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

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Join Me Tomorrow Free Webinar, Focus Roundtable: March 22, 4:00 PM ET – Has Selling Become Very Complex?

Read: Buying Facilitation®: the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions and Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what you can do about it.

Or listen to Sharon Drew’s audio learning that shows you how to facilitate prospecting, problem solving, change management, and fund raising conversations.

Buying Facilitation® is a Method not just a term is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

For decades, I have been a proponent of, and keynoter in the field of, Spirituality in the Workplace. In my work life, I have focused on the sales profession, as I believe (as the very foundation of business), it offers the capability of making each person, each interaction, and each company, based on true service.

Unfortunately, with the focus on profit, solution placement, timelines, and commissions, the potential for true servant-leadership has been overlooked.  Indeed, it’s possible to make money AND make nice.

SELLING AND SERVING

The sales job focuses on needs assessment and solution placement. Of course this is necessary – but only as the final stage of issues buyers have to address. Sales overlooks the off-line, behind-the-scenes decision issues that buyers must face privately before they get the buy-in to make a purchase.

But this is where the true servant-leader connection is: imagine having the capability to serve folks by first helping them discover all of the internal, values-based decision issues they must address, and being a support for them in the process. And once this is done (and it makes the sales process about 600% more efficient), then we can sell.

But we can’t continue to use our positions merely to influence others. Let’s look at what we’ve been doing until now.

Sellers, unfortunately, have a belief that if by offering the right data, in the right way, to the right demographic, or use the right incentives/push/pitch/influence, that people will buy, or acquiesce, or agree. Yup: I’ve got the important data that you need - now let me tell you about it and explain to you why you need it.

But that premise is false: sales only close 7% of prospects. And that’s an average. Why doesn’t this model work? Because it’s based on information push, and ignores the underlying values that people must match before they are willing to buy anything.

People don’t make decisions based on data: all decisions are made according to our internal values/criteria/beliefs (There is no such thing as an emotional decision, even if it looks that way to an outsider.). We do not choose to do something that goes against our values, so all behavior is a rendition of our beliefs in action, even thought it might be unconscious.

When we create data-driven vehicles for marketing and sales, we have no idea if the mode, the message, the presentation, or the actual verbiage, go against someone’s internal criteria. As a result, we have no idea how our message will be received. That means, we’re either lucky or we’re unlucky. Bad odds: with the best solution in the world, we are dependent on luck for our results. Not to mention that we are missing opportunities to connect with, and serve, another person.

THERE IS A WAY TO INFLUENCE WITH INTEGRITY

But there is a way to help buyers discover how to make the decisions and manage the change (and every purchase – indeed every decision – is a change management issue) by using their own values.

It’s possible to help buyers:

1. assemble the appropriate Buying Decision Team members.
2. define the criteria they must ultimately meet.
3. explore every opportunity to resolve their issues with familiar resources (like current vendors or by fixing current.
4. get necessary buy-in from whoever, whatever touches the final solution.
5. operate with the new solution without facing major disruption.

Buyers need to accomplish all of these things anyway, with us or without us. Sellers sit and wait while they do them. We can continue to wait to make a sale, or become a true Servant Leader and lead our buyers through these decision points. It’s not sales – it’s change management – but it will afford an opportunity to serve, and buyers will fold the seller in to the decision, with no objections.

I’ve developed a new type of question (Facilitative Question) to help people uncover their unconscious criteria to make new decisions, or re-weight old beliefs. It works alongside my Buying Facilitation™ model as a decision facilitation tool to manage change. Questions like:

How would you know when it was time to add a new skill set to the ones you’re already using successfully?

What would you need to trust to recognize that by facilitating buying decisions and entering the buying journey earlier that you can close more deals and make more money?

How would you know that adding a change management skill set would be good for business, and enable a true collaboration of trust and respect?

Until or unless people choose to reconsider all of the elements within their status quo, and can find a way forward that doesn’t disrupt their status quo irreparably, they will do nothing.

Start the buyer/seller relationship by helping buyers manage the idiosyncratic decision issues they must address internally. Then, once they’ve determined their route, you can sell. It’s a good way to help people get to the very core, the very heart of the matter and create real change. And it gives us the opportunity to truly serve by leading the change.

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Read about: The Heart of Business & Leadership Involves Helping Others Buy. Gain new skills with the  Learning Accelerators and hear Sharon Drew use the Morgen Buying Facilitation Method®.

The Heart of Sales is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

For sure, with my Aspserger’s, I don’t always relate like others do (although God knows it feels ‘normal’ to me). But in the same vein, my brain is different from other’s brains. That’s the good news! With my unusual brain, I’ve been able to think differently, and bring new models and success, collaboration and servant leadership in to the world.

Not to mention, without brains like mine, how else does change happen – by continuing doing what you’ve always done?

As we know, Einstein said that we can’t solve a problem using the same thinking that created it. There is another quote of his I’d like to offer here: “If at first an idea does not sound absurd, then there is no hope for it.”

I’ve been putting my decision facilitation material (Buying Facilitation Method(R), Facilitative Questions, Presumptive Summaries, Decision Sequencing) into the world and training folks since 1988. Sure – it’s different. But thankfully, its power and success has been validated through the 20,000 people I”ve trained. Does it fit with conventional thinking? Absolutely not :)

Today, someone asked me if my Facilitative Questions met the criteria of conventional questions, and if not, why would they be valid?

Imagine if websites had to meet the criteria for conventional marketing, or light bulbs had to meet the criteria for candles, or cars had to meet the criteria for horses. Each new idea has a new set of criteria, expectations, outcomes. Why bother comparing it to old ideas?

And, since there are new and different possibilities, with different outcomes, criteria, and expectations, why not all get curious rather than arrogant? Why not get excited that there is something new possible?

I get so so annoyed when people talk to me as if I were an idiot, instead of getting excited that just maybe, I’m changing the conventional and developing something awesome. Imagine if my ideas were really smart. Then what would have to be true?

Just saying.

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Don’t treat me like an idiot is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

1. what is a ‘sales question’?
2. what makes them ‘hotter now’ than before?
3. what is their intent?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and make a guess that a ‘hot sales question’ is defined as the ‘right’ question to ask to…. um, maybe, elicit the ‘right’ data to see if it’s a qualified lead? Or something to do with closing a sale? Or gathering the ‘right’ data to close the deal by saying the right thing? No idea.

Since my Buying Facilitation Method® uses a new type of question I developed (Facilitative Question) as a guide, like a GPS system, to lead buyers through the decisions they must address before they buy, I probably have a different criteria around what questions should do. My questions don’t elicit data, but can initiate decisions, invoke new behaviors and choices, and influence thinking and activity. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

WHAT IS A QUESTION?

A typical question pulls data from a decision already made (see my book Dirty Little Secrets. I have a large section devoted to questions). A responder (i.e. buyer) gives information to a person (i.e. seller) who wants to gather data.

The very nature of a normal question is biased, posed to fulfill someone’s curiosity; the responder offers the best guess from a data-bank of comfortable responses, hoping to satisfy the questioner. Lots of bias everywhere.

In sales, questions have been used to elicit information to better sell, to:

• understand/assess need;
• get an ‘admission’ of need;
• gather data about inner processes so risk can be assessed.

Bias, bias, bias, and the responder/buyer learns nothing; the seller gets biased data, potentially missing important data that was omitted from the questioner’s assumptions.

Here’s an example of how using conventional questions brought in the possibility but missed the deal. When a client at KPMG called a very large corporation to assess need, to sell an 8 figure consulting deal, they got an RFP. They were ecstatic: this company had always used another XYZ Consulting. KPMG put a whole bunch of senior managers onto the project to create a million dollar proposal. Finally my client had a shot at getting the business.

When I asked “Why aren’t they going to use XYZ anymore?” they were stumped. They called the prospect and posed the same question to them. They were told:

“We are going to use them. We just needed a second bid.”

In sales, we don’t realize we pose our questions in a very narrow landscape: we are so focused on getting the data WE think we need that we ignore very important stuff that could actually close the sale.

FACILITATIVE QUESTIONS TEACH HOW TO DECIDE, NOT GATHER DATA

I developed Facilitative Questions as a way to lead change, not gather data. Here is a very simple example:

• Why do you wear your hair like that? is a simple question that gathers data.
• How would you know when it was time to reconsider your hairstyle? is Facilitative Question that actually teaches the listener how to pull decision making criteria from disparate memory storage units in the brain so the listener can pull their highly valued criteria together to potentially make a new decision. In other words, I help people decide to buy.

So Facilitative Questions support the buying decision. Regular questions give the seller biased data that most probably leaves out lots of important information and may not be the issues the buyer is considering when they make a purchase.

BOTH AND

Both types of questions are necessary, but at different times in the buying decision process. Conventional questions assess need and place solution, help sellers figure out how to place their pitch, or understand the competition. They help us understand all aspects of a buyer’s need and make sure they understand our solution.

By using Facilitative Questions first, we can become part of the private, inside track that goes on in the buyer’s decision journey. When working with a prospect with a large buying decision team recently, I sent them sets of Facilitative Questions every time I knew they had a meeting, and became part of the Buying Decision Team. These questions were all based on ensuring they managed their change - nothing to do with gathering data or placing solution. Examples of questions I used:

• How will you and the whole decision team know when it’s time to bring in a new solution when you have so much going on already? What would you need to hear, see, experience?
• At what point will you know that you have buy-in from the group you want trained? How can you assess that? How will you recognize problems? And how will you and the decision team assign responsibility to manage any fallout before, during, or after the training?

Until or unless buyers figure this stuff out, they can’t buy anyway. And you know what? It’s so easy to create these questions for the telesales team or for inside sales folks, to use to qualify.

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• Hear Sharon Drew use Facilitative Questions in her live calls on MP3 or CD.
• Want to learn to use Facilitative Questions to help buyers decide? Check out my Learning Accelerators

Sales questions are hot now is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

Let me pose a few questions for you to help you think through the issues you should be thinking about now.

Is your branding and marketing being done in a way that the buyer can make sense of — their way (not your way)? How do you know? What flexibility do you have to make the necessary changes?  And how will you choose the right changes to make – and know they were the right choices (and if not, make changes quickly)?

What sort of model do you have in place to help sellers and buyers collaborate around the sorts of issues buyers have to manage behind-the-scenes?

What’s the difference between what – and how – your buyers want to buy vs. what – and how – you are selling?

How is your sales effort enabling the buying decision process rather than just pushing solution?

How are you positioned to enter the buying decision issues earlier in the buyer’s journey – you know, that human side of decision making that sales doesn’t handle very well?

How accessible are you – or do you have one of those gated community/sites that no one can get through?

How are you serving your prospects in a way that makes you THE solution choice over your competitors – and not just because of your solution?

How are you enabling the Buying Decision Team to work with you to help them get the buy-in they need to move forward (Hint: giving them data about your solution does not work here).

If you start by answering these few questions, you’ll have some idea of the position you are in to move forward and be flexible during these interesting times. There is plenty of opportunity for creativity here. So enjoy.

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And for those wanting more information about the Buyer’s Journey, listen to me and Mark Sellers on a live webinar on August 19.

Change, change, change is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

This is a copy of an email I got from a prospect considering whether or not to attend my public Buying Facilitation™ training. I’ve included my response so you can see how I use the decision facilitation model to help the buyer buy. This is unedited: I just omitted his name.

Hi Sharon Drew,

I’ve got a little buying decision process of my own to manage. I’m in a new position, the boss is open to me trying new things to move sales forward, but I haven’t been here long enough to have any ‘capital’ to cash in and ask for him to ‘front’ the funds for the seminar/guided study. At the same time I’m trying to manage the expectations of my fiancée with respect to my job (Commission vs Hourly). The old story. Do you have any sage advice or facilitation questions I could ask myself in order to get me where I need to be.

I know something HAS TO CHANGE and I’ve got to graduate to a different level to have the type of success I want to achieve…

RESPONSE from Sharon Drew:

What has stopped you from making any changes until now? It seems like your status quo has been fine until now, or you would have made a change already.

How will you know when it’s time to add some new skills to what you’re already doing?

What will it look/sound/act like when what you are doing is no longer good-enough? How will you know that one set of skills  would serve you better than another?

What would you need to know about any proposed change (i.e new skill set), before you’d be ready to consider adding new skills to what you’re already doing successfully? And how would you know, at the start, that the ‘something new’ would fit with what you’re already doing so you have a cohesive skill set?

How would you/your boss know before you made a commitment to take a program or learn a new skill that you’d end up getting the tools you seek and that they would give you the level of success that may not be possible for you given your current skill set?

I recognize that there are many choices you’ll have to make. I hope these questions help you make your best decision. Once you come up with these answers, it will be easier to know if adding Buying Facilitation™ will give you the outcomes you seek.

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Helping a prospect choose me is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com